Living simple. Living happy. Trying to stay under budget.

Kana’s visit last week proved to be way busier than I thought, thus – no blog posts.

We had a wonderful time! We went to the Natural History Museum at the U of M campus in Ann Arbor, Lions game (which they won, boo-ya!), Canada for shopping, the Henry Ford Museum, the DIA and lots of shopping and eating. Her stay here went by so fast! When I drove her back to the airport Friday, it really seemed like she had just been here one day. Now she is in NYC and I hope she is enjoying her time there!

Kana and Stacy tailgating before Lions game

Something very exciting happened the day she arrived (besides getting the first floor finished and fully set-up). I received a call in the afternoon for a job offer! I’ll be working part-time (24 hours per week) doing office work for an agency that helps children find foster homes. I start January 3rd. I think this will be a nice balance of having something to do and make money, but also have plenty of time to do work at home. Because of this job offer, I had to visit my wonderful doctor last week for an impromptu physical, blood test and tetanus shot. On Monday. During the snowstorm and horrible icy roads. But, I made it there and back without issue, and my blood results came back with flying colors. My arm still hurts from the tetanus shot though.

Another thing that happened during Kana’s visit is that I ate like absolute crap. Poutine, sliders, onion rings, Mexican, Italian, Hershey’s kisses, Japanese Kit Kats, honey-flavored pretzels, and so on. By the end of the week my body was waving the white flag. “MAKE IT STOP!!!!” But, it took until today for me to wake up and say “time for a change”. So I am cleaning up the diet. Starting January 1st I am doing The Whole30 (http://whole9life.com/2010/05/whole-30-v2/). If you want to do it with me, by all means! I almost have my mom on board 😉 As sad as it is for me to admit, the hardest part will be the no alcohol part. But, I think this will be good for my alcohol moderation. I have two New Year resolutions: work out and train to be able to ski a 15k race and drink less alcohol. Last year my resolution was to give up drinking all soda except a root beer here and there. I had two root beers this year and no other soda. I kept my resolution last year and I know I can do it again this year. The Whole30 will help me to start off 2011 on the right foot.